Chapter 30
Agatha
My face?
I reach up with my free hand, the one that’s not still clutching the handle of the now-broken teapot. Have I burnt it?
A rustling behind me draws the attention of Lem and Mansfield, and their faces register a new level of surprise.
“Well!” says a voice I know too well, even though I only speak to her once a year.
I twirl. Melusine stands—no, floats—near the doorway, her arms crossed as she surveys us all, from Father and Chrestowine standing by uselessly, to the grappling bodies of Mansfield, the thug, and Lem, and then finally to me.
“Well!” she repeats, bobbing closer. “So you broke it at last!”
I feel stupid. There’s something I should know, something I should understand, and it’s just …
not connecting. What have I done? What am I missing?
I look at my fingers, curled around the last shard of the teapot, but Melusine reaches out and places her hand under my chin, angling my face toward her.
“Well!”
“Stop saying that!” I snap.
“Her face!” Mansfield wails. “What did she do? Can you fix it, godmother?”
Melusine ignores him, tipping my chin this way and that as she peers at me with her too-large eyes.
“If you say well again,” I say through gritted teeth, “I’ll—I’ll—”
“You’re flushing!” Melusine says.
I blink, the seemingly pointless interjection breaking my train of thought. She drops my chin and grabs my free hand, guiding it up so my palm is pressed against my cheek. “Do you feel it?”
My face is indeed warm. I push her away, mouth opening to say something annoyed, then I freeze.
“I’m flushing?”
“As red as a gooserose bush!” Melusine says happily.
I narrow my eyes. “I can’t flush. It’s my Poise.” Even as I say it, my hand sneaks back up to my face, feeling the warmth under my fingertips. And—wait—what is this bump on my chin?
“She’s ruined!” Mansfield wails, stomping his foot like an overgrown child again. “I don’t want to marry that!”
“I’m sure Melusine can fix it,” Father stammers.
“You’ll have to pay up, Mansfield!” Chrestowine interjects. He nods at me with a gleeful look in his eye. “You kept a card up your sleeve after all, my lady!”
“But I didn’t,” I say. I turn to Lem, feeling very small and very foolish and not at all in control of anything. His face is slack.
“You broke it,” he says slowly, and again I have this feeling that understanding is right here, and I should be able to grasp it, but my mind is slow and syrupy and—
I freeze, my fingers still splayed on my too-warm cheek. “I broke it.” My eyes widen, locked on Lem’s. “I broke it.” I swallow, my gaze darting around the room at the scattered pieces of the shattered teapot, before turning back to Melusine. “I broke it? … Everything?”
“Everything.” Her fingers flutter in the air and the pieces of my teapot respond, gathering themselves into a little pile of shards and dust. “I told you it was breakable, didn’t I?”
I glare at her, speechless. She shrugs. “Well, I meant to tell you. And it’s not my fault if no one remembers the proper lore!”
“You mean to say that all this time, I could have just … broken it?” I run my free hand over my face, noting the slight change to the shape of my jaw, the bumps on my skin.
My voice sounds different, now that I think about it, and …
am I slouching? Without my Poise, I’m finding it difficult to maintain my composure.
I catch a glimpse of the hair hanging over my shoulder. “My hair is brown?”
“Change her back,” Mansfield whines from the desk. When I look at him, he shudders. “Ugh, she’s hideous.”
“Not hideous,” Chrestowine interjects. I’m grateful until he adds, “Just no longer unnaturally beautiful. Perfectly average. What a shame.”
I can’t look at Lem again. I don’t want to see that same disappointment in his eyes. So I’m not beautiful anymore, or graceful, or charming, or clever, or … or anything that made me who I am. Who I was. What I was.
I can handle that, can’t I?
Despite my best intentions, my eyes dart to Lem, who’s still staring, slack-jawed. I can’t hold his gaze. Well. He’ll be grateful that he truly isn’t stuck with me now.
“I can restore it all if you want.” Melusine’s voice breaks my reverie.
With another wiggle of her fingers, the pile of shards re-form themselves into a nearly-whole teapot.
All that’s missing is the handle I’m holding.
She tips her head to the side, a lock of hair flapping over her forehead as she peers at me with those wide, violet eyes.
My fingers tighten around the handle even as my arm reaches out, offering it to her slowly.
“But,” she adds, not yet taking it from me, “you won’t be able to break it again. The Gifts will be fixed forever this time.”
“Do it quick,” Manchester says, peeved. “I’m tired of looking at you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I say sharply.
The Count re-seats himself on the sofa and chuckles. “Can you restore her charms without restoring that last thing you obviously cursed her with?” he asks Melusine. “She’d be a better match for me if she weren’t so terribly outspoken.”
Melusine’s lip curls. “It’s all or nothing,” she says. “And I was particularly proud of that last one. Took me ages to get the formula right. I worked on it for at least three hours.”
I’ve never been quite sure how time moves for Melusine. Differently, it seems, if ages is three hours.
“Go on,” Mansfield says. Chrestowine nods encouragingly.
I glance at Father. He nods, too. “Let her fix you, Agatha.”
But I don’t let go of the handle.
“Go on,” Mansfield repeats, louder this time. “None of us are getting any pleasure from looking at you now, you selfish little minx. Give it over.”
“It would be a shame to waste all those … resources,” Chrestowine says. “We could still make something work together, I think.”
Their voices rise and mingle, talking over each other, urging me to let go.
“It’s up to you.” I can barely hear Melusine over the sound of the others chattering at me. “But you were very beautiful.” She wrinkles her button nose at my current face.
I’ve never even seen it. She started changing me before I even knew what a face was.
My fingers shake. Melusine holds out her hand for the last piece of the teapot.
“Go on,” Mansfield insists, stepping closer as if to push me into Melusine’s arms.
“Shut up!” a new voice roars, louder than all the rest combined. “All of you, shut up!”
Lem, moving faster than I thought he could, blocks Mansfield before he touches me.
Melusine claps. “I am glad to see you—”
“And you,” Lem interrupts. “All of you, shut up!”
His voice, the princely, commanding one, surprises them all into silence. He turns to me, eyes blazing and forehead wrinkled deeper than I’ve ever seen it. “Agatha is the only one who gets to decide if she wants her Gifts back or not. The rest of you can be quiet.”
I swallow back the lump that rises. Stupid lack of Poise.
I didn’t know how much I relied on it. Lem must see the way I’m shaking, must see the tears pooling in the corner of my eyes.
I wish I could hide them. The longing is almost enough to beg Melusine to restore my gifts. I feel so … exposed. So vulnerable.
So worthless.
So unwanted.
Lem’s fierce gaze doesn’t waver, and though he must notice how shaken I am, he says nothing about it.
Mansfield is the first to recover from the surprise of Lem’s interruption. “And why,” he says snidely, “should any of us listen to you, beggar?” He elbows Lem, jostling closer to lean over me with his beady eyes and his foul breath. “Let her fix it, you ugly wretch.”
Lem’s face hardens. He doesn’t turn away from me, eyes flicking down to the broken teapot. In one smooth motion, he slings his guitar over his shoulder and slams it to the ground with a startling crash.
“You should listen to me,” he says as splinters skitter across the room, his ragged clothing melts back into the royal outfit he wore the night of the ball, and his features slide back into his previous, scarred face, “because I am Limplemoyne, Prince of Rhylorria, and I will not have you disrespecting my wife.”
Lem
Well, not my wife any longer, it seems, but I won’t weaken the message by hemming and hawing over it now.
I can’t feel the changes that I hope—sort of hope—are happening to my face, but when I look down at my body, I see that the minstrel clothes have been replaced by my formal attire: creased trousers, smart jacket, starched collar, glittering cufflinks.
It’s all very uncomfortable.
Although the clothes probably smell better than the rags I’ve been tramping about in. With that thought, my attention darts back to Agatha.
I’ve never seen her so rattled. As soon as she broke that teapot, she changed—her features lost their sharply perfect beauty, somehow, with her skin sprouting blemishes and her hair softening to a dull brown.
But the biggest change was her demeanor.
She’s always been so contained, so controlled. I’ve never seen her blush before.
But now—now her chest is rising and falling with the quickness of her panted breaths, and her cheeks are flushed pink, and the corners of her eyes twinkle with pooling tears. And that’s why I’d impulsively smashed the guitar, ignoring the fast-rising regret when my identity is restored.
Because Agatha looks afraid, and I’m not going to stand here and let any oil-faced Candori nobles tell her that she isn’t good enough as she is.
She’s still perfect. She’s always been perfect. She’ll always be perfect. And I’ll fight anyone who tries to make her feel less-than.
“You can all shut up,” I grind between my teeth, “and give Agatha some time to think.”
Mansfield gapes like a fish suddenly pulled from its watery home. “You—you—you were supposed to be dead!”
I snarl at him, drawing closer to Agatha. “Yes. Quiet.”